Aim or Try
by Ostlusha
Summary: For each person, there is a moment in his life when it all changes. For some people it's when they leave High School, for others it's when they meet their true love. For James Moriarty, it started when he was 8, with a new found bounce in his step. Rated M for content and language.
1. Chapter 1

7 years

It was an office of sorts, very small with very little taste. Blue wallpaper littered with white bubbles was stapled to the wall in a disorganized fashion. The 3 tall plastic chairs shoved unceremoniously in the corner were a deep grey that seemed to be faded from black via many years of usage. To the right of them was an overly soft leather couch, and to the left of them was an old, untidy, metal black desk, stained from all sorts of pens, markers, and other types of dishevelment. As I walked into this room from the waiting room outside, my little nose scrunched up in disgust. From the blue walls to the sound of a crackling ocean coming from speakers, I could tell that I didn't like it there.

Swinging my stubby legs on the too tall chair that I had chosen, the couch looked like a death trap to me, I looked up at the weird lady in front of me. She had on a plastic expression of false glee. "Now James, I want you to tell me about yourself. For each thing you tell me I'll give you a treat." The lady looked down at me in a condescending manner. I wanted the treats, and I wasn't going to play along with her childish games.

"I already took your candy." I smiled widely, playing the role of the dumb 7 year old. As I lied, I looked her in the eyes to see her reaction. Looking confused, she glanced at the second drawer on her desk and quickly looked back at me, trying to figure out when I could have possibly stolen the candy. "I hid it." I glanced at the bathroom, knowing that was where she would look to find it of that is where I looked - I had played this game many times with my mum when she had something I wanted, the infantile deceit was second nature by now.

"Uh oh!" The fake woman forced a laugh and placed a strained smile upon her face. "Where could it be?" The underlying tone of degradation was utterly despicable. Standing up and heading towards the loo, the idiot lady opened the door to begin searching.

I hopped off of my seat and walked over to the desk, opening the second drawer, to promptly find the giant bag of sweets. Quickly and quietly I snatched up the bag and hurried to the chair, stashing the sweets behind my back taking a single caramel from the bag. The woman returned to find me slowly unwrapping the sweet and plopping it into my mouth, idly sucking on my fingers to capture every last bit of the sugary goodness.

As the lady stared down at me I looked up, smirking at the fact that she was utterly bewildered. "I won." I giggled. "I always win at games." I raised an eyebrow and glared, daring her to reprimand me as I silently planned for all the ways she could respond.

"I didn't realize there was a game to be won Jimmy." She started to put the mock smile back on her face, clearly pissed off by this point, only to stop halfway as a reaction to my sickly sweet expression of power.

"You wanted games, and I gave you an easy one. You fell for it. You're boring." I waved her off with a well-practiced stoic look, as she stared at me in shock. Suddenly breaking from her trance, the woman walked into the other room to retrieve my mum who had been waiting. The woman looked me over and looked back at my mum, saying something with a lot of big words in it such as _bipolar_, _sophisticated_, and _psychopath_. She had no reason to go at me with such vigour, but I supposed that is what people do when they realize they've been beaten. Especially when they feel they demand some sort of superiority.

My mum gave the woman money and grudgingly took my hand in hers pulling me out the door. I grabbed the bag of candy from the chair. Looking back at the therapist with my mum in one hand and the candy in the other I grinned knowing the woman was dumbfounded that I could outsmart her. _Imbecile_. I turned back around, skipping out the door with a newfound bounce in my step.


	2. Chapter 2

11 years

_Bitch._

"Jimmy! Open the fucking door _NOW_ before I bash your bastard head in!"

Don't you just love mothers?

Tentatively, I opened the battered door to the bathroom a crack. Makeup caked my hands from an attempt to cover up the bruises on my ribs. Not that anyone was going to _see_ them, _I_ just didn't want to see them any longer. Putting on my bravest face I could, I opened the door to face my mum.

I was 11 by this point and shorter than my mum by an inch. At this time in my life I was a straight B+ student (to stay under the radar of course) but could outwit any teacher in the subjects of Maths, Science, and English. I could also proudly steal, manipulate, and deduce as if it was walking, talking, or breathing. I knew how to control my emotions when I wanted to, and I knew how to control others without them knowing. My one weakness, the one fucking splinter in my entire being of perfection, was my god-forsaken-son-of-a-bitch mum. Ever since I can remember all she would do is drink and beat me to a pulp. Every so often she would drug me and cradle me as if I was a fecking infant again. Those were her good moments. I suppose the blood lust is hereditary.

Grabbing me by the throat and slamming me to the floor my mother cursed at me loud enough to quake the earth. "You little shite! You FUCKING devil! I should strangle you in your sleep!" With each sentence the woman slammed my head into the tiles of the bathroom. Fighting back was futile. It would only make things worse. No matter how much I despise admitting I needed help, I probably would have died right there if it wasn't for the sudden trill of the doorbell.

Rushing down the stairs and muttering a string of profanities my mother slammed open the front door. Slowly, but carefully, picking myself up, I headed to my room where I climbed through the open window and down the ivy that clung to the wall, running towards the forest that bordered the house.

I ran until I had no breath left in me. I caught my breath on the side of a tree near a small ravine. Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them back, not letting myself be weak. I could still feel the salty drops burn my dry eyes, reminding me of the pain I was feeling on the side of my head. I dropped to the ground, tentatively wetting my shirt in the ravine to clean my head with.

Dazed, a plan formed in my prepubescent brain. The plan was smart, brilliant if I may say so myself - and I do. To this day I remember every step back to the house, every second towards freedom. Oh mother, poor stupid bitch. Every time I had been hit, kicked, beaten within an inch of my life, flashed before my eyes. I was ready now, and fuck all, she deserved what was coming to her.

I climbed back into my room and snuck downstairs, to find my mum was in the kitchen rustling through the cabinets. I went to her bedroom and crawled under the bed, taking out the gun she kept hidden. Hands trembling, I popped open the cylinder, shaking out the bullets to make sure it wasn't loaded. I only needed to threaten. I didn't want any evidence left.

I waited under the bed until I heard her walk upstairs calling my name. Slowly, gun behind my back, I crept up the stairs and into my room to find the whore sitting on my bed with a bottle of cheap wine in her hand. Smiling crookedly she looked at me and said: "Oh there you are Jimmy. Come back eh? Good boy." Seconds before she lunged at me I pulled out the gun.

"Don't move a muscle _mummy_." I was shaking so hard I could barely keep the gun in my hands. Whether I was shaking from happiness or nervousness I didn't know, either way I couldn't help it, it was almost over. She froze, absolutely terrified for once in her Goddamned life. The feeling that came over me was absolutely wonderful. Seeing the fear in her eyes gave me a high of pure bliss.

Slowly, keeping the gun aimed at her I went to my closet, taking out the rope mummy usually used to tie me up and keep me in the closet. Oh the irony that _this_ should be her peacemaker. I threw the rope at her, hitting her lap. "Tie a noose." She didn't move. "Now _bitch_ before I fucking shoot you square in the head. I _know_ you know how. You've used it on me before. Or have you conveniently forgot?" I spoke soft and low, not eager to let the neighbors hear, but eager to unease the whore in her final hours. Undying trepidation filled my mother as she began tying her own noose. What do you know? The bitch started crying.

"Jimmy don't. I'm your mother!" She was sobbing and shaking, finishing off the knot used on me many a time before.

I snorted. "Mothers don't try to kill their children Genevieve. Mothers are nice, sweet, bake fucking cookies for their children! They don't tie them up and leave them in a closet for a day to _starve_." I took a step closer, hearing the power in my voice gave me a new found confidence I had never felt before. I had barely said a word to her in my life and there I was! I jerked the gun forward, motioning to the noose. "Put it on and shut the fuck up or I'll fucking SHOOT!" Glaring and clenching my fists I watched her delicately put on the fine necklace. I took a deep breath and, keeping an eye and the gun on her, wrapped the end of the rope around the foot of my bed, for extra measures, and finally on the doorknob.

"Go sit on the edge of the window." Genevieve complied. I smiled. This was easier that I had originally thought.

"You can't kill me. You couldn't even aim right. You'd try." She was breaking out of her spell, realizing I had no power. No time for any of my practiced monologues. It was time for her to go. As I walked towards her holding the gun she spat at me. "Aim or try to ya little cunt." Then sadly, she slipped. Who am I kidding? I pushed her. I loved it.

Delicately placing the gun in a box of toys, I returned to the window. The coughs and splatters were music to my ears. I smiled, jumping on my bed. I counted. _1_, breath, _2_, breath, _3_, breath. I inhaled, soaking in the oxygen, something my poor mother couldn't do. I sniggered in a breathy daze.

I walked lightly over to the door, unable to open from the weight of my mother. Taking a deep breath I channeled a normal little boy and started screaming. I banged my fists in the door and screamed bloody murder - in this case the murder wasn't bloody, but the idiom still makes me giggle. I fussed and fussed until I heard the door slam open. I then ran to the corner of my room opposite the door and huddled into a ball, playing the act of the scarred little helpless boy.

Eventually the neighbors knocked the door down, finding poor little me, locked in a room with my dead mother hanging out the window. It took all of my will power to not show how happy I was to finally have that woman out of my life. At some point the police were called and I was cradled into an ambulance.

As I walked from the damned house for the last time, it was all I could do to hide the looming bounce in my step.

* * *

_AN. Thank you to those of you who have favourited this and followed this! I have the first seven or so chapters written, and then I have no idea where to go with this, so if you have any thoughts or opinions or any sort of ideas relating to this story or others I could write just zing me. Thank you so much again! It gives me more motivation to get my arse into gear and write!_

ANN: Does that even work? Hmmm. Well I hate it when author's apologize about their work, but I felt kind of all over the place when I wrote this chapter. I tend to write out of hate, and I'm sure it turns out to be really sporadic when I do. I can promise that it does get better however!

_Thank you all again so much._

_Shai_


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